More than one in four small to medium enterprises (SMEs) believe that their employees take too many holidays and are looking to cut the number of days they are entitled too, according to a new survey.

The survey by BDRC Continental Research on behalf of MetLife, an insurance company, found that 27 per cent of SMEs felt that current holiday quotas were too generous and that they were considering reducing annual leave by four days.

Dominic Grinstead, MetLife UK’s managing director, said: “Employers are starting to question the overall value of their employee benefits package and paid holidays are clearly an expensive part of the package. The ongoing UK economic recovery will rely heavily on SMEs and they need to contain costs.”

The report also found that employees were happy to reduce the amount of holiday if they received something back in return, like, for example, a pay rise.

However, given the sluggish recovery, most employees recognised that a pay rise was highly unlikely, with 60 per cent admitting that it was unlikely to happen over the next 12 months at least.

A recent survey from Sage revealed that SME owners were struggling to find time to go on summer holidays because of a lack of available funds.